"A warning: If you rip, tear, shred, bend, fold, deface, disfigure, smear, smudge, throw, drop, or in any other manner damage, mistreat, or show lack of respect towards this book, the consequences will be as awful as it is within my power to make them."

Career at Hogwarts

Earlier career

At some point, Pince took up the position of Librarian at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She was greatly disliked by the students for being very strict and unhelpful in finding books for them.[2] An example of her strictness was the fact that she would not allow food in the library, for fear that the books would be damaged,[4] and also disallowed talking, laughing, whispering, sneezing, scurrying, or any other behaviour that might seem at all suspicious in any way. She was also known to place odd jinxes and hexes on library books for their protection; for instance, one copy of Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration was jinxed to hit the reader around the head, should he ever doodle on it.[5] Pince cleaned the dust on the shelves of the library manually, with a feather duster she brandished at students whenever they looked suspicious.[2]

At some point, the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, visited the library with the goal of publishing Quidditch Through the Ages for Muggles to raise money. However, Madam Pince was extremely reluctant to let the book leave the confines of the library, as well as the wizarding world, and Dumbledore had to pry each of her fingers from the spine to take it.[5] Once he had taken the book, she wrote a warning, threatening the readers that the consequences of mistreating the book would be as horrible as it was in her power to make them.[7]

Madam Pince was still librarian by the time Harry Potter had arrived at the school. As Harry, along with his friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, searched the library for a book on Nicolas Flamel, Pince was deemed an obstacle, as she could warn Snape of their activities.[2] Once, in December 1991, she saw Harry edging towards the Restricted Section of the Library and asked him what he was looking for. When he answered "nothing" for fear of her suspicion, she sent him out.[2]

A while later, Madam Pince overlooked the students at Study Hall, and was seen talking to a female student.[9]It is unknown if this was a regular event that she chaperoned, or if it was a one-time event.

During the Easter holidays, she was seen stamping out a pile of books for a frantic-looking Hannah Abbott, who was presumably revising for her O.W.L.s. That day, she found Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter with chocolate in the library, and bewitched their belongings to chase them out.[4]

At eight o'clock in the evening one day, Pince closed the library and told all of the students in there to return the books back to their shelves and to leave. When she told Harry and Hermione to leave, she noticed the Half-Blood Prince's highly graffitied copy of Advanced Potion-Making. Enraged, she screamed about how the book was "despoiled" and "befouled", and looked as if she may have had a seizure.[14]

The following year, Severus Snape was appointed Headmaster along with fellow Death Eaters Amycus and Alecto Carrow as professors of Dark Arts and Muggle Studies at Hogwarts. The Carrows imposed a reign of terror in Hogwarts as they enforced cruel punishments on students. Madam Pince, like the other members of the staff, protected the students from the Carrows. On 2 May, 1998 Hogwarts was attacked by the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort's forces. It was likely she battled to save Hogwarts and survived. [16]

Physical description

Madam Irma Pince, The Hogwarts Librarian.

"Madam Pince, the librarian, was a thin, irritable woman who looked like an underfed vulture."

One of Madam Pince's most striking physical attributes was looking like an underfed vulture.[10] Her skin was parchment-like,[14] her cheeks were sunken,[14] her face was shrivelled[4] and she had an unflattering hooked-nose.[14] She was also very thin and irritable-looking.[10]

Personality and traits

Pince was a short-tempered woman who was overly protective of the Library's books[10] and, as such, quite unpopular among students. She was mainly seen by students as an obstacle to research,[2] but she was professional nonetheless, helping students to check out books.[4] Her protective nature of books do not just apply to the library's, as she looked deranged when she saw Harry's own textbook covered with self-written notes.[14]

Magical skills and abilities

Librarian skills: As a librarian, Madam Pince was able to easily locate various pieces of information for students, as Harry was sure that she would be able to find Nicolas Flamel in a second, but thought it might be too suspicious to ask her about it.[2]

Jinxing and hexing: Madam Pince was skilled with jinxing and hexing books with nasty spells to make sure they were not mistreated.[5] She also jinxed Harry's belongings to chase him and Ginny out of the library.[4]

Non-verbal magic: Madam Pince was also adept in casting intricate non-verbal magic with her wand. One example was when she saw Harry and Ginny with chocolate in the library. She jinxed their possessions to chase them out.[4]

Loquaciousness: Pince was very loquacious and voluble in her speech.[17] She was also fluent in Latin.[17]

Author's notes

"I would like to apologize for you and any other librarians present here today and my get-out clause is always if they'd had a pleasant, helpful librarian, half my plots would be gone. 'Cause the answer invariably is in a book but Hermione has to go and find it. If they'd had a good librarian, that would have been that problem solved. So ... sorry."

Etymology

Irma could be a play on firma, which can mean both solid and frail. This makes her name mean something along the lines of "a frail woman with a pinched nose", or one who has a "firm pinch". Irma could also mean "the strong" or "she who is protected by Irm" (Irm is a Germanic god). Irma is from German irmen for "whole" or "complete".

The last name Pince seems to be in reference to the French word, which means "to pinch". The style of folding eyeglass, pince-nez, literally means "to pinch the nose".

For various reasons, such as that Pince has a hooked nose and dark hair like Severus, that her name is an anagram for "I am Prince", and that she is a rude and somewhat snappy personality like Snape, it is rumoured that Irma Pince is actually Eileen Prince in hiding, though this has not been confirmed.

Notes and references

↑If Pince was in a relationship with Filch, as was suspected by some students and suggested in The White Tomb chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, then it would be highly unlikely that she was married.